Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume III Part 5

This campaign, however, against a principle, was carried on without any personal feeling. The perfect simplicity of the President's att.i.tude would have disarmed the hottest opponent, and indeed Huxley took occasion to write him the following letter, in reference to which he writes to Dr. Foster:--] "I hate doing things in the dark and could not stand it any longer."

December 1, 1887.

My dear Stokes,

When we met in the hall of the Athenaeum on Monday evening I was on the point of speaking to you on a somewhat delicate topic; namely, my responsibility for the leading article on the Presidency of the Royal Society and politics which appeared a fortnight ago in "Nature." But I was restrained by the reflection that I had no right to say anything about the matter without the consent of the Editor of "Nature." I have obtained that consent, and I take the earliest opportunity of availing myself of my freedom.

I should have greatly preferred to sign the article, and its anonymity is due to nothing but my strong desire to avoid the introduction of any personal irrelevancies into the discussion of a very grave question of principle.

I may add that as you are quite certain to vote in the way that I think right on the only political questions which greatly interest me, my action has not been, and cannot be, in any way affected by political feeling.

And as there is no one of whom I have a higher opinion as a man of science--no one whom I should be more glad to serve under, and to support year after year in the Chair of the Society, and no one for whom I entertain feelings of more sincere friends.h.i.+p---I trust you will believe that, if there is a word in the article which appears inconsistent with these feelings, it is there by oversight, and is sincerely regretted.

During the thirty odd years we have known one another, we have often had stout battles without loss of mutual kindness. My chief object in troubling you with this letter is to express the hope that, whatever happens, this state of things may continue.

I am, yours very faithfully,

T.H. Huxley.

P.S.--I am still of opinion that it is better that my authors.h.i.+p should not be officially recognised, but you are, of course, free to use the information I have given you in any way you may think fit.

[To this the President returned a very frank and friendly reply; saying he had never dreamed of any incompatibility existing between the two offices, and urging that the Presidency ought not to constrain a man to give up his ordinary duties as a citizen. He concludes:--

And now I have stated my case as it appears to myself; let me a.s.sure you that nothing that has pa.s.sed tends at all to diminish my friends.h.i.+p towards you. My wife heard last night that the article was yours, and told me so. I rather thought it must have been written by some hot Gladstonian. It seems, however, that her informant was right. She wishes me to tell you that she replied to her informant that she felt quite sure that if you wrote it, it was because you thought it.

To which Huxley replied:--]

I am much obliged for your letter, which is just such as I felt sure you would write.

Pray thank Mrs. Stokes for her kind message. I am very grateful for her confidence in my uprightness of intention.

We must agree to differ.

It may be needful for me and those who agree with me to place our opinions on record; but you may depend upon it that nothing will be done which can suggest any lack of friends.h.i.+p or respect for our President.

[It will be seen from this correspondence and the letter to Sir J.

Donnelly of July 15, that Huxley was a staunch Unionist. Not that he considered the actual course of English rule in Ireland ideal; his main point was that under the circ.u.mstances the establishment of Home Rule was a distinct betrayal of trust, considering that on the strength of Government promises, an immense number of persons had entered into contracts, had bought land, and staked their fortunes in Ireland, who would be ruined by the establishment of Home Rule. Moreover, he held that the right of self-preservation ent.i.tled a nation to refuse to establish at its very gates a power which could, and perhaps would, be a danger to its own existence. Of the capacity of the Irish peasant for self-government he had no high opinion, and what he had seen of the country, and especially the great central plain, in his frequent visits to Ireland, convinced him that the balance between subsistence and population would speedily create a new agrarian question, whatever political schemes were introduced. This was one of] "the only political questions which interested him."

[Towards the end of October he left London for Hastings, partly for his own, but still more for his wife's sake, as she was far from well. He was still busy with one or two Royal Society Committees, and came up to town occasionally to attend their meetings, especially those dealing with the borings in the Delta, and with Antarctic exploration. Thus he writes:--]

11 Eversfield Place, Hastings, October 31, 1887.

My dear Foster,

We have been here for the last week, and are likely to be here for some time, as my wife, though mending, is getting on but slowly, and she will be as well out of London through beastly November. I shall be up on Thursday and return on Friday, but I do not want to be away longer, as it is lonesome for the wife.

I quite agree to what you propose on Committee, so I need not be there.

Very glad to hear that the Council "very much applauded what we had done," and hope we shall get the 500 pounds.

I don't believe a word in increasing whale fishery, but scientifically, the Antarctic expedition would, or might be very interesting, and if the colonies will do their part, I think we ought to do ours.

You won't want me at that Committee either. Hope to see you on Thursday.

Ever yours,

T.H. Huxley.

Hideous pen!

[But he did not come up that Thursday. His wife was for a time too ill to be left, and he winds up the letter of November 2 to Dr. Foster with the reflection:--]

Man is born to trouble as the sparks, etc.--but when you have come to my time of life you will say as I do--Lucky it is no worse.

November 6.

I am very glad to hear that the 500 pounds is granted, and I will see to what is next to be done as soon as I can. Also I am very glad to find you don't want my valuable service on Council Royal Society. I repented me of my offer when I thought how little I might be able to attend.

[One thing, however, afforded him great pleasure at this time. He writes on November 6 to his old friend, Sir J. Hooker:--]

I write just to say what infinite satisfaction the award of the Copley Medal to you has given me. If you were not my dear old friend, it would rejoice me as a mere matter of justice--of which there is none too much in this "-- rum world," as Whitworth's friend called it.

[To the reply that the award was not according to rule, inasmuch as it was the turn for the medal to be awarded in another branch of science, he rejoins:--]

I had forgotten all about the business--but he had done nothing to deserve the Copley, and all I can say is that if the present award is contrary to law, the "law's a ha.s.s" as Mr. b.u.mble said. But I don't believe that it is.

[He replies also on November 5 to a clerical correspondent who had written to him on the distinction between sheretz and rehmes, and accused him of "wilful blindness" in his theological controversy of 1886:--]

Let me a.s.sure you that it is not my way to set my face against being convinced by evidence.

I really cannot hold myself to be responsible for the translators of the Revised Version of the Old Testament. If I had given a translation of the pa.s.sage to which you refer on my own authority, any mistake would be mine, and I should be bound to acknowledge it. As I did not, I have nothing to admit. I have every respect for your and Mr. --'s authority as Hebraists, but I have noticed that Hebrew scholars are apt to hold very divergent views, and before admitting either your or Mr.

--'s interpretation, I should like to see the question fully discussed.

If, when the discussion is concluded, the balance of authority is against the revised version, I will carefully consider how far the needful alterations may affect the substance of the one pa.s.sage in my reply to Mr. Gladstone which is affected by it.

At present I am by no means clear that it will make much difference, and in no case will the main lines of my argument as to the antagonism between modern science and the Pentateuch be affected. The statements I have made are public property. If you think they are in any way erroneous I must ask you to take upon yourself the same amount of responsibility as I have done, and submit your objections to the same ordeal.

There is nothing like this test for reducing things to their true proportions, and if you try it, you will probably discover, not without some discomfort, that you really had no reason to ascribe wilful blindness to those who do not agree with you.

[He was now preparing to complete his campaign of the spring on technical education by delivering an address to the Technical Education a.s.sociation at Manchester on November 29, and looked forward to attending the anniversary meeting of the Royal Society on his way home next day, and seeing the Copley medal conferred upon his old friend, Sir J. Hooker. However, unexpected trouble befell him. First he was much alarmed about his wife, who had been ill more or less ever since leaving Arolla. Happily it turned out that there was nothing worse than could be set right by a slight operation. But nothing had been done when news came of the sudden death of his second daughter on November 19.] "I have no heart for anything just now," [he writes; nevertheless, he forced himself to fulfil this important engagement at Manchester, and in the end the necessity of bracing himself for the undertaking acted on him as a tonic.

It is a trifle, perhaps, but a trifle significant of the disturbance of mind that could override so firmly fixed a habit, that the two first letters he wrote after receiving the news are undated; almost the only omission of the sort I have found in all his letters of the last twenty-five years of his life.

His daughter's long illness had left him without hope for months past, but this, as he confessed, did not mend matters much. In his letters to his two most intimate friends, he recalls her brilliant promise, her happy marriage, her] "faculty for art, which some of the best artists have told me amounted to genius." [But he was naturally reticent in these matters, and would hardly write of his own griefs unbidden even to old friends.]

85 Marina, St. Leonards, November 21, 1887.

My dear Spencer,

You will not have forgotten my bright girl Marian, who married so happily and with such bright prospects half a dozen years ago?